A few of my friends came over to my place last night for a viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s epic 2001: A Space Odyssey. It has been about 10 years since I have seen the film and I had forgotten a great deal of it. Kubrick’s command of shot composition is unparalleled, creating striking scenes of ships and planets in their simplest forms. For example, an epic shot of the earth, moon and sun for the opening credits is simply three circles overlapping symmetrically. Check out the opening credits. Kubrick was an amazing designer.

The orb design for HAL’s face plate (seen above) is a brilliant piece of work creating a character from the simplest of forms. And the psychedelic trip scene near the end is simply stunning, unheard of in any other motion picture. See it here.

2001 really does stand alone in terms of pace, concept/technology design and effect usage. It’s very hard to believe it was released in 1968.

Another great find via the Canadian Design Resource, a poster for Galileo by the Theatre Company at the St. Lawrence Centre. Beautiful use of type and minimalist imagery. I only wish I could find more information about it’s origin.

I was approached by the Australian electro/house group Duosseudo to design the full CD packaging for their newest release entitled We Are One. It is always a challenge to create a piece of art that needs to stand alone, yet sync up properly with the group, their music and ultimately the album it represents. Marc and Luc were excellent to work with during the entire creative process.

I will post more on this project when I get some photos of the full CD design.

Just a reminder that I will be showing my work and selling posters tonight at Fast Times 12 here in Halifax. If you are in the city, stop in and say hello at the art show during the first portion of the evening. Here are the details:

Fast Times 12
Thursday, October 9. 10pm
Tribeca Bar Bistro, 1588 Granville Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
With music by DJ Vinyl Ritchie, Double A and The Rhythm Method
$7 advance (tickets available at CDPlus), $10 at the door

Many conversations between me and my friends have erupted over the years about awesome movie title sequences. Many movies opt for the standard black background with white text, but it’s wonderful and refreshing when a director takes the time to construct a unique and dynamic introduction to their film.

Enter Art of the Title. Ian and Alex have put together an amazing resource featuring the top title sequences from movies and television into one blog. This is a visual feast, and finally brings an end to my tedious hunting around Youtube for my favorite intros. I grabbed a few images of my favorite titles above, Catch Me if you Can, Clone High, Vertigo, Lost and Thank-you for Smoking.

A beautiful poster created by Canadian designer Nelu Wolfensohn for A Celebration of Canadian Artists at Expo 86, found via the Canadian Design Resource. Great color palette, typography and use of perspective and shade to create the impossible shape.

“The type’s optical illusion symbolizes an impossible reality, a different universe, proper to the field of arts.” – Nelu Wolfensohn

Check out Nelu Wolfensohn’s portfolio for more of his wonderful work. I apologize for the poor quality of the image, I wasn’t able to find a larger version online.

I have always been interested in collaboration, especially with creative friends of mine who specialize in mediums outside of what I do. My pal Jonathan Mitchell is a top-notch 3D animator, working for Delicate Machines here in Halifax.

“We’ve been looking at one of our songs from a different angle. Under a different light. So we can hopefully kind of see it for the first time.”- Maynard James Keenan

Jonny took my previous Stop the Monuments piece and rendered the 2D design into a tangible 3D scene. We then played a bit of back-and-forth as we worked on coloring, lighting, etc.This was a blast to work on, resulting in something with a very different direction and atmosphere from the original.